


Just Let Go

by spiralsofourmusic



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Death, Explicit Language, Grief/Mourning, Hogwarts Fifth Year, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter), Panic Attacks, Pureblood Culture (Harry Potter), Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:21:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29016522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiralsofourmusic/pseuds/spiralsofourmusic
Summary: Set at the end of the Order of the Phoenix, losing Sirius was Harry's tipping point and Malfoy of all people is the one to calm him down. Both feeling something for the other but both unable to reveal it, I hereby gift you a story of unresolved love and affection.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Kudos: 48





	Just Let Go

A mere fifteen years old and Harry Potter had already suffered through more trauma and pain than most people are ever forced to endure in their lifetime. Abuse from his aunt and uncle, harassment from Malfoy and his half-witted minions, bloodthirsty beasts, injustice, lost parents and lost friends, Voldemort constantly trying to murder him and now? Now, he had just lost his _godfather_. His last remaining relative that could have brought some light to the dark. 

_Sirius_.

Harry sat alone in an ill-lit, barely traversed corridor, halfway back to the Gryffindor common room. Shortly after the battle at the Ministry, he was going to Gryffindor Tower to pack his things for the end of yet another year, but his legs gave out and he crumpled weakly to the cold stone ground, leaning against a smooth wall. His whole body was limp except for his heaving chest. 

Air. He needed air, but he couldn't seem to breathe. Why would he need to anyway? What was there to possibly live for now? His nails scraped uselessly at the dusty stone as if trying get a hold on something, anything, and have it stay with him, unlike everything else that was torn away from him. 

His lungs burnt as he gasped for air, his mind fogged, his fingertips buzzed from the lack of oxygen, hot tears streamed relentlessly down his cheeks and seeped into the cuts still yet to heal on his face as if taunting him, reminding him of his anguish and the twisted tale of his life. He considered giving in to the pain, letting his lungs fully reject the air he was trying to suck back in. Maybe all of the suffering would end. Maybe he would be reunited with Sirius, with his mum and dad, where no one could ever tear them apart again. Maybe he could–

"Potter?" A hushed voice came from the shadows, startlingly loud in comparison to the isolated silence crushing Harry's body and mind just a moment before. 

Harry shot up to his feet, a trembling hand fumbling for his wand and the other clinging to the wall he was leaning against, steadying his feeble legs. 

"Who– who's there?" He choked out. 

"Come on, Potter. Who else refuses to call you by your given name?" The voice drawled. Malfoy. 

Harry growled from the depths of his throat, but it quickly morphed into a frail whimper that he desperately tried to conceal. 

"Get. The _fuck_. Away from me." Harry snarled with all the force he had left within him.

"No." Malfoy snapped before instantly correcting his hostility. "No, Potter. Look, I'm sorry. Just, stay for a minute. Please." 

To Harry's bewilderment, Malfoy's voice seemed to be suddenly devoid of all harshness. It even sounded beseeching. His wand still raised as high as he could manage to hold it steady, Harry stilled and waited for Malfoy's next words to penetrate the quietude. 

"You need to breathe. I could hear you–" 

"You need to fucking leave before I–" 

"Just listen to me!" Malfoy barked before again softening the habitual animosity of his words. "I know what it's like, alright? To feel like you can't get another breath in. Like the world's collapsing down around you and you're tied to the ground waiting for it to crush you. You need to _breathe_." 

The sudden appearance of Malfoy had momentarily distracted him from his growing panic, but Harry rapidly recalled the agonising state he was drowning in and yet again felt the oxygen being sucked from his lungs. His arm fell pathetically to his side, his wand clattering to the ground. He wanted to fight against the pull of his panic, forbid Malfoy from seeing him like this and get him to leave before he cast an impulsive cruciatus curse his way. But he couldn't. His hysteria and mind-numbing grief superseded any sense of composure or logical thought and he fell uncontrollably to his knees, mere feet away from where Malfoy stood. 

The tears came like a flood now, an excruciating scream building up inside of him as sobs tore at his insides. Then, he felt hands seize his shoulders in a powerful, sobering grip. 

"Potter– Harry. Harry, look at me." Malfoy had at some point joined him on the stone floor, kneeling in front of him and glaring into his eyes with severe determination. Harry hesitantly locked his puffy, red eyes on Malfoy's cool, grey ones and gulped a few times, his head spinning, or was it the room? 

"Breathe, Harry. In... Out... I know it hurts, but you've got to keep breathing. Good." He spoke with a practised voice without any falter as if he had calmed panicked and grief-ridden people dozens of times before. What Harry would never know was that it was Draco's own moments of hysteria that had taught him how to conquer the human mind's demons. 

"Just let go," he said much more gently, "just for five minutes. Forget everything else and just focus on you and me. We're alone here, Harry. You're safe. You're okay. You're okay." He repeated, his voice cracking ever so slightly to see someone he cared for so profoundly be entirely broken in front of him.

They spent what seemed like forever staring desperately into each other's eyes; Harry clinging to his consciousness and what remained of his sanity, and Draco to his close proximity to Harry which he never thought he would ever experience. Harry, beneath the sweat and stench of panic and pain, smelt like heaven. The carefully crafted wood of a broomstick, the sweet smell of what could only be treacle tart... 

"Draco?" Harry whimpered, sniffling softly. His breathing had finally begun to slow and his chest was no longer heaving violently as if his heart were trying to burst out of its cage. 

The Slytherin's eyes had fluttered shut, his forehead inching ever closer to the Gryffindor's. Yet before they could touch, Harry straightened up in an inadvertently symbolic gesture of how these two boys, so different from one another in so many different ways, could never truly connect. Or that was what Draco's parents had instilled into him, anyhow.

~~~~~~~~ 

_"But, Mother, I care for him! It means nothing to me that he's a half-blood. I don't wish him dead, unlike_ Voldemort, _" he spat, "this is not the side that I want to fight–"_

_"Do not speak the Dark Lord's name–"_

_"ENOUGH!" Lucius Malfoy roared from the opposite side of the ill-lit, high-ceilinged room. His voice echoed terrifyingly, enough to cut both Draco and Narcissa off without another word._

_"_ You, _son, are a pureblood." He said, drawing his gaze away from the greenish flames in the fireplace to turn and face his offspring. We live to serve the Dark Lord. Harry Potter is a pathetic obstacle in his rise to power and to the purity of our world. You will not consort with him under any circumstance. Your corrupt_ sexual preference _", which Lucius spat out like the words were poison,_ " _is shame enough to this family. I would suggest you reconsider who you wish to spend your time with and think more deeply about where your loyalties lie. Now get out, you're making me sick."_

~~~~~~~~ 

"Draco? Are you alright?" Harry spoke again, tearing Draco out of his trance-like state of combined peace from Harry's presence and revulsion from memories of countless quarrels with his parents. 

Draco exhaled forcefully, seeking to compose himself before sneeringly replying, "Trust _you_ of all people to put others before yourself, Potter." 

Harry seemed to reach out soothingly for Draco's hand or thigh, but before Draco could even comprehend the affection behind the gesture, Draco stood up stiffly, his eyes still trained on Harry's with a look of both loathing and utter, irrevocable love. 

"What–" Harry started. 

"No one hears of this, understood?" Draco said in a whisper that was barely audible, a slight quiver in his voice that only he could perceive. 

He turned sharply away, which to a stung Harry matched Draco's typical performative nature, causing him to revoke all sentiment from his facial expression and consolidate in his mind that Malfoy would never open up to someone like him. Yet for Draco, this harsh rejection was the only way that he could convince himself to walk away from Harry without collapsing into his arms, burying his head deep into his woody, treacly-scented chest and never letting him go. He had to sustain the pretence that there was a deep hatred between the two of them, preventing Draco from ever discovering if Harry felt something more for him than pure disgust. 

People in their weakest moments cling onto whatever they can to stop themselves from plunging into complete darkness, this he knew all too well. Despite his mind screaming at him to find out, he had no choice but to accept that he would never know whether Harry's vulnerability and gentle voice in that moment was a part of that fragility, or whether it was something else entirely. 

As if it were the most powerful spell in the world, or if he had merely hoped that it was, he repeated a mantra in his mind for the remainder of the afternoon and evening, eventually relying on it to fall into a pained, restless slumber. 

_Just let go, Draco._


End file.
